my watch began
by irnan
Summary: I think, Brandon said to Daenerys, the first time he showed her their godswood, that it would be more true to say that only life can pay for life. It just depends whether that life is given or taken.
1. bran

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** happyending!AU, because I'm a sap._

**my watch began**

They said afterwards that Jon had found him in the weirwood grove in the Haunted Forest, half-frozen to death, Summer standing guard over him, Meera, Jojen and Hodor all four, silent and still as the stone direwolves that lay at the feet of the Kings in the North in the crypts of Winterfell. Bran remembered little of it: darkness, strange, weary warmth. A voice from far away, harsh as the caw of a crow: _one boon you may ask of us, in return for the service we will take from you_. The cry Jon gave when he saw them, a choked-off noise between a howl and a shout of joy. Then Ghost licking his face, and icy cold when Jon lifted him up and the wind found his face, and then nothing, for a long time.

When he awoke, he was still in darkness. Terror clutched his throat for long awful moments before Jon's hands took hold of his shoulders. _Bran, Bran, you're safe, little brother. It's me, it's Jon. This is Castle Black; you're safe._

_I'm blind, _he realised_. I can't see._

And then, very gently, Jon had said, _Bran, you're standing up_.

He had cried then: not for joy as Jon first thought, but for anger. _This was not what I asked of you!_ But Meera, quietly, from somewhere in the dark: _Perhaps you'll need your legs to serve them, Bran. _

That made sense.

_Serve who? _Jon had demanded.

_The gods_, Bran had said. _The old gods, the weirwood gods. I –_ he tried the words on his tongue for the first time – _I am godsworn now_.

With the words came certainty: the dark was a part of it, the blindness a help. Summer would be his eyes now, if he needed them.

In the darkness, the light would shine all the brighter.

They said afterwards that Jon had hidden him from Stannis Baratheon and his red witch-woman for weeks and weeks. Again Bran remembered little of it. For a while after he first lost his eyes he lost all sense of time, blundering around in the dark hanging on to Summer's fur or Jojen's arm or Jon's hand like a child, relearning the use of his legs, discovering hearing and smell and touch infinitely heightened. He didn't know if that was normal for blind people or a part of being godsworn. Perhaps a little of both.

But what he did remember, all the rest of his life with undimmed clarity, through all the Long Night and the battles that it brought and the Coming of the Dragon Queen and every slow second he spent weaving spells into the ice of the wall and feeling it grow once more beneath his hands, was the smooth wood chair underneath him and the crackle of the fire on the day the ravens came: the press of Summer against his leg and the click of Ghost's toenails on the floor and Jon's heavy footsteps and the break in his voice when he said: _Bran – the birds – they come from Greywater Watch. Howland Reed says – he says Robb lives, and Arya with him._

The Seven Kingdoms never did make up their collective mind if the Young Wolf had truly died at the Red Wedding and been brought back to life by his father's gods at the behest of his brother, or if he'd simply escaped the slaughter in the drunken confusion, or if indeed he had ever been at the Red Wedding at all, but had magicked up a sending of himself and Grey Wind and sent them in his place, and it was these shadow-copies that the Freys had butchered. Robb himself was never to speak of it one way or another, though Arya loved to tell the tale of how she'd stumbled into a farmer's croft one snowy evening searching for shelter on her way back north and found her brother sitting by the fire, pale and thin and prone to coughing, peeling potatoes for the lady of the house who'd taken him in. It was always Rickon's favourite story, even though it made Sansa sniffle.


	2. alayne

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:**__ collection of glimpses of a happyending!AU._

**future's architectured**

Truth to tell, Alayne had not meant for Baelish to die. It was really quite inconvenient, as his death had deprived her of a teacher and a protector at a time when she still had need of both those things. Nestor Royce had moved swiftly to consolidate his position as High Steward, and he was loyal enough to his Lord Robert... for now. Alayne had seen no other choice but to go to his solar one early morning while most of the keep was still abed and tell him, tearfully, the full truth of Robert Arryn's health.

That had been an unpleasant conversation. If Lady Waynwood's ward inherited the Eyrie, the fortunes of Lord Nestor might well go into a sudden steep decline, and he had not been slow in understanding that. Consequently, he had pledged his silence on the matter of Robert's health, and promised everything the little lord required to make him happy for the time being.

Alayne had been most relieved to have it confirmed that her continued presence, along with that of the new friends Robert had made in Lord Nestor's home, were among those things, even if one of those new friends was a kitchen maid's son. If Robert had decided he hated them... well, it hardly bore thinking about. Many things didn't, these days. She would have to go through Baelish's papers carefully once they returned to the Eyrie in summer to make sure that there was nothing there which might give her away. As yet, no one could even tell her if the man had made a will.

Really, it was most inconvenient that Baelish was dead.

_But there_, she thought and laid down her quill for a minute, pausing to massage her aching wrist. _I had to do something. I don't know if I would have been brave enough to risk my head for Robert's life, but..._

"S-Alayne, who _are_ you writing to? Robert wants to build a snow-castle. And play with dolls. Alayne, I was too old to play with dolls when I was _three_."

"Never mind, sweetling," said Alayne gently, ruffling the boy's dark curls. He stood on tiptoe by her chair to look at the table-top and the letters scattered across the wood, blue eyes narrowed curiously. "We'll play-pretend the dolls are bad men who need taking away."

"You made him go away, you said."

"That's what big sisters do."

"Even Osha said you were incred-ble."

"Incred_i_ble. And thank you; that was a lovely compliment."

"You're welcome. So who _are_ you writing to?"

"All kinds of people," said Alayne. "The Umbers. The Mormonts. The Glovers. Jon, at Castle Black. Everyone I can."

"I remember the Umbers," said Rick triumphantly. "Grey Wind bit the Greatjon's fingers off. If Shaggydog did that, he'd've been sent to the godswood."

Alayne smiled. One more line... there.

"Rick, can you read yet?"

He frowned. "Not much. I didn't like it."

"I'll teach you."

"But why..."

"Because I said so – hush now, don't sulk at me. You don't want to sulk like Robert, do you?"

Rick gave her a glare that told her he knew exactly what she was up to, comparing him with that milksop Robert. She bent over and hugged him, laughing.

"Here, you can help me seal them all and take them to the Maester."

She picked up the quill again and paused, looking down at the parchment.

The final step.

She signed her name with a flourish half-forgotten, and smiled again, relieved that she remembered that flourish, trembling that she'd dared it. _Bitch!_ Baelish had choked out as his muscles cramped, his breathing stuttered to a halt. _Bitch!_

_Wolf-bitch_, she'd said, hands shaking, sick to her stomach with what she'd done, but her voice was surprisingly steady. _You should not have forgotten it_.

Lothor Brune had gone very pale when he had heard of Baelish's death, and looked at her instinctively, but to make accusations was to suggest motives for Baelish's murder, and Alayne was reasonably certain Lothor Brune had no intention of admitting to anyone that Baelish had been quietly plotting the killing of two small boys – one the Lord of the Eyrie, the other...

The other the Prince of Winterfell.

"See, I can read," said Rick. "_Sansa Stark_. And that's _my _name – Rickon – right _there_."


	3. the queen in the north

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**the queen in the north.**

She dresses in silence, slowly, methodically. She rips her clothes with detached determination, barely seeing the fabric tear.

Her lady mother will be angry.

Good.

She brushes her fingers over the cut on her forehead. Touches her hair. Tears at that, too, so it hangs in unsightly hanks, comes loose from its coils. Let them all see her grief.

"Jeyne? Jeyne!"

She bolted the door. Her lady mother rattles it, annoyed. "Jeyne!"

"One more moment, milady. Forgive me."

Brief startled silence. Jeyne has not spoken her mother so politely since the day the ravens came (_dark wings, dark words_), but her mother hesitates only a moment before sweeping away. Jeyne can hear her footsteps fading in the corridor.

The cloak is too big for her; it was Robb's. With luck her lady mother will not notice – will see only the torn dress, the disarrayed hair.

"I thought," she says aloud to her lord husband's shade, "I truly thought it would work."

_So did I_.

"I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you – so strong, so brave and handsome. I didn't mean to trap you, no matter what she says."

_I know it. You told me so, the morning we wed. Remember? Sybell Spicer's daughter would not have made much of a match no matter what, you said. Not though she is a Westerling. You just wanted to know, you said. What it was, to love someone... You'd send me away to my Frey bride, and if a child came of this..._

"You looked horrified. You said no child of yours would grow up the way your brother did, hated by his stepmother. That the Freys were even prouder than the Tullys. You said you'd father no bastards, ever."

_I meant it_.

Jeyne looks down. "You'll father no children at all, now."

_No other children_.

She shakes her head. "I've been late before. It means nothing. You heard what she said."

And yet...

And yet, had not that last posset been left undrunk, the night she returned to Riverrun after he'd sent her back in the rain? _Drink up, drink up, I want a grandchild_, her mother had called and bustled out, but Jeyne had thrown it in the fireplace in a fit of grief: what use a posset for fertility when her lord husband was miles to the north? Perhaps that morning, before they rose, it might have done her good. That morning, wrapped up in his arms, the scratch of his beard when he kissed her and the way he touched her, gentle, loving.

It is a miniscule chance, the tiniest of chances, so small as to be negligible, as to not exist at all.

_Is it enough?_ he asks.

"Enough for what?"

_To make you a wolf_.

Neither bedding nor wedding had made her that, nor living with him, struggling to understand his ways, to be patient, to comfort him in his grief and hold him and love him and sooth his fears while he held hers at bay. Grey Wind... she should never have mistrusted Grey Wind. The wolf was a part of him, Jeyne knows it now.

There will be no direwolf pup to be a part of her child.

"Where would I go? What would I do? Birth your child in a ditch by the roadside and scrape a living as an innkeep's serving girl or a seamstress while the traitor Bolton sits in your rightful seat and puts our son's inheritance to his own uses?"

_North. Go north_.

"To Winterfell?"

_Further. Castle Black_.

Jon Snow. Of course. _Lord_ Snow, now. The birds had brought that news a few days ago and Jeyne had burst into tears all over again, thinking of what Robb might have said, how delighted he would have been for the brother he loved. Jon would help her, for Robb's sake, even if all he did was give her a place to sleep and a few words of comfort.

"Lord Snow. Yes."

Oh, it is foolhardy – absolutely foolhardy. She'll be found within days. She'll never make it to the Neck, let alone Moat Cailin. The Kingslayer will kill her, and her babe too, the way his men had butchered the Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon during the Sack of King's Landing.

If she even carries a babe. The chance is tiny.

Jeyne touches the bed: the bed they'd shared, the bed he'd slept in, loved her in, that had held his scent for days while she sobbed her grief into the pillows and refused to leave the room.

The chance is tiny.

"Jeyne!"

Her lady mother is back.

Tiny.

It is a chance she will not risk.

"Yes," she repeats and clenches her fist. "_Winter is coming_."

_I love you_, says Robb's shade softly. _I love you both_.

(She finds the Blackfish, quite by accident; by then her chance has grown and grown. She decides on _Eddard_ or _Catelyn_; _Robb_ would be too obvious. Then, one glowering morning in an inn yard, months later with her grief numbed and her tongue sharpened, calluses on her hands and the soles of her feet, thinner than ever and her small skills as a needlewoman and a herbalist by now well-known in the little village, a scruffy boy with grey eyes touches her elbow and says, _Excuse me, is this the Blue Fork Inn? My brother and I almost got lost in the woods. What's your baby's name?_

And when Jenny Snow turns around to answer the boy and his the brother, she's become Jeyne Stark once more.)


	4. the magicker

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**the magicker.**

"But the question is, what now?" says Jon softly into the silence. Bran feels Sansa shift at his side and moves with her a little, rests his head on her shoulder. Sansa has changed in ways he can't quite understand; she's become harder and softer both at once.

"What would you have us do?" she asks quietly. "Bolton is dead, his bastard besieged at the Dreadfort –"

"That siege won't be lifted in a hurry," says Robb, mostly understandable now they've been listening to him all day. "It's one thing to truce with the kraken's daughter, and thank the gods the Crow's Eye is drooling over his imaginary dragons, but with half our armies tied up at the Dreadfort, we're still vulnerable."

"The _krakens_ ceased to worry me a while ago," says Jon ruefully.

"I know," Robb answers. Jon and Bran were closeted with him for long hours today; he has heard the tales of half the Night's Watch, and if he had any scepticism left in him this morning, he doesn't now. "Winter is coming."

"So we've got to find a way to get into the Dreadfort and kill the Bastard of Bolton," says Arya, thoroughly practical. Bran grins a bit. Arya has a way of getting at the heart of things these days, and a ruthless cunning in a fight that matches Robb's.

Robb twists his mouth. At least, Bran is sure he does – he remembers the way Robb looks when he has to do something he doesn't want to. "You sound as if you're suggesting an assassination."

"Maybe I am," Arya says flatly. Bran thought she'd be more defiant about it, but Robb and Arya have been travelling with each other for months, just as Jon and Bran have been here together for months, and Rickon and Sansa, first in the Vale and then at Greywater Watch. Robb, Bran supposes, knows what Arya is capable of.

Bran knows it too: can see it when he looks at her, like a shadow behind-over her, the shape of the woman she will be. The Lady wears leathers, dark gray and black, and while she carries Needle in her left hand there's a strange knife in her right, with a dragonsteel blade. The Lady of Winter, Death's Lady, the Witch of Winterfell with a thousand faces, Lady Iceheart; the Lady of the Dreadfort.

He cannot see the _hows_ and _whys_. All he knows is: it will happen.

They don't call her that because she _wed_ the man.

"Our luck's turned," he says suddenly.

Jon snorts. "Has it? There's the Dreadfort to the east, the ironborn in the west, Stannis sat at Eastwatch with nowhere else to go but not enough strength left to ride against us, the Freys in the Neck and White Harbour blockaded. Whether you're standing at Winterfell or Castle Black, you're hemmed in. And winter is coming."

"Still," Bran says firmly, "our luck _has_ turned. We're all here, aren't we?"

One of the girls laughs softly, a warm, quiet laugh. Bran realises it's Jeyne. He still doesn't know her very well, but Robb loves her, and Arya calls her _little mother_, teasingly, and she's gentle-hearted and patient, and the first thing she said to Jon when she put Kitten in his arms was, _I was trying to come to you, when I thought Robb dead_, and he said, _I would have done everything and anything in my power to help you_, and Bran had known then that things would be all right.

"I think Bran has a point," she says now, tired but content.

"I thought you were asleep," Robb says gently.

Jeyne yawns. "Very nearly. But Rickon already is."

It is true; the Prince of Winterfell is fast asleep, snuggled between Shaggydog and Nymeria, who has her head on Arya's lap.

Bran cannot truly see, not the way he could before. The greensight comes quick and clear to him now. He's grown used to seeing normal things from Summer's perspective, translating them to his own. And then there are some things, sometimes, that he just... _knows_. Where another person is. What they're doing.

Sansa yawns as well, rather hugely, and ruffles Bran's hair. "Bed for the pups at least, I think," she says. "Robb, how is your nose?"

"Broken," says Robb sourly.

"Serves you right," says Jon, unrepentant.

"I shall wear it as a badge of honour," says Robb snidely.

"Or a reminder not to trust in other people's honour," says Jon.

"Don't you worry," says Robb, suddenly grim. "The Freys will be – taken care of."

Sansa sighs. "Don't you try any plotting, Robb. You're no good at it."

"Too honest," says Arya.

"It's a major flaw among the men in this family," says Sansa, perfectly serious. "If Uncle Brandon had killed Littlefinger when he first had the chance, all sorts of things might have been different."

"I did think," says Robb blandly, "that I might give you the honour, Sansa. Perhaps you could come to some accord – with the kraken's daughter."

Silence.

"You want me to send Asha Greyjoy reaving into the Green Fork," says Sansa softly.

"Why not?"

"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword," says Jon.

"True. But I cannot be in two places at once, and I have plans for the Dreadfort."

"The Frey lord at Riverrun will be sure to march north," says Sansa sharply.

Robb grins: wide and... well, wolfish.

"That's what you want," says Bran, staring: for here sits the King in the North, just as he saw him this morning, riding into Castle Black. Not just Robb-the-Lord, but Robb the Young Wolf, the warrior, the battle commander.

"The man's a fool by all accounts," Robb explains. "Half his bannermen had sons at the Red Wedding. There were rumblings enough when Sansa was writing to the lords in Rickon's name. How much more if they see me alive at Moat Cailin? The Lannisters can talk imposters all they like, but it will be rather difficult to argue with Grey Wind, don't you think?"

"And then what?" asks Jeyne quietly.

"A dead Frey lord, and open rebellion among the river lords," says Robb. "They'll not come north again."

"Are you sure?"

"They will not be able to afford to, love. They have lost too much already. So have we, in truth, but we have no other choice."

"It makes sense," says Sansa. "But the Frey – what is the man's name? Emmon? You will have to be brutal, Robb. No burials for this one. Put his head on a pike and leave it there."

"I thought to hang him, actually," says Robb. "Like a common criminal."

"Even better," says Arya.

Jon sighs. "I can't claim I like it. But thankfully, it is not my decision."

"I can't claim to like it," says Robb, flatly determined. "But Father's way simply did not work, and I think it's time to look to the old Kings of Winter for examples. I failed you all once. I will not do so again. Especially now there's Kitten as well."

Ah, Kitten. She'd been delighted by the Wall, and deeply interested in Castle Black; she'd clapped her little hands in glee and flung her arms around Summer and Ghost, completely unafraid, with a happy cry of "Wuff!" She was fierce and strong and curious about everything, and currently fast asleep on her Uncle Jon's lap; and Bran, the first time he had seen her, had seen first and foremost the Queen in the North superimposed on his baby niece: Catelyn of Winterfell, House Stark's Shadowcat with a direwolf at her side and her gloved hands wrapped around the hilt of her father's sword.

And perhaps, perhaps, a shadow behind her that might have been her siblings.

"We all failed each other, Robb," says Sansa quietly. "We were children."

"Not anymore," says Arya.

Hardly. Bran tilts his head; someone is coming up the stairs to Jon's room. The wolves stir, very slightly. Summer catches Brienne's scent, and a stranger who smells of fire.

Knock on the door.

"Yes?" Jon calls, handing Kitten back to her father and getting to his feet. Bran pushes closer to Sansa with the sudden emptiness on his other side, and Jon mutters a curse, trying to climb out from the pile of blankets and wolves and Starks that's heaped by his fire. Brienne opens the door.

"Lord Snow," she says, "a rider to see you, from White Harbour he says."

"Manderly?" wonders Robb. Bran hears him stand too.

"No, I'm afraid not," says the fire-stranger. "I'm a simple traveller."

"The Lannisters have been blockading White Harbour for months," says Jon.

"A simple traveller with a lot of gold," says the fire-stranger with an easy grin. Bran can see him now; he's dressed all in black and gold, and he carries two swords – one's a longer version of Needle, the other's shorter, curved. Summer looks up, at his face, and sees pale silvery hair, like Grey Wind's fur around his scars, and dragon-eyes.

Brienne leaves quietly at a nod and a smile of thanks from Sansa; she takes it seriously, the charge that Mother laid on her. _Keep them safe_.

But she has her secrets too, and sometimes Bran is a little afraid of them.

"So," says Jon. "Where have you come from, if not White Harbour?"

"Most recently, Sunspear," says the fire-stranger. "Before that... Meereen."

"Meereen!"

"Slaver's Bay. Rather a long way away. My uncle was... unimpressed with my insistence on coming up here myself after all that travelling, but there –" the fire-stranger grinned again; he was ridiculously cheerful for someone who'd arrived at the Wall after dark and a long ride in the cold – "I overruled him. I don't suppose, Lord Snow, that there's a chance of a _private_ word?"

"No," says Robb.

"Ah-_hem_!" says the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

"Ghost or no, I'm not leaving you alone with him," says Robb firmly.

"I was almost hoping you would say that," the fire-stranger admitted. "It is rather a complicated tale. I was not truly looking forward to telling it twice."

"Oh, Jon, offer the man a drink," says Sansa. "He's come a long way."

The fire-stranger bows to her. "Milady," he says.

"My sister Sansa," says Jon, and an odd look passes swiftly over the fire-stranger's face. "This is Robb Stark – Queen Jeyne – Brandon – and Arya Stark."

Summer turns his head; Arya arches her eyebrows at the fire-stranger. "_Valar morghulis_," she says to him.

The dragon-eyes widen. "_Valar dohaeris_," he replies solemnly.

"He's Bravoosi," Arya explains.

"I spent my childhood there."

"Welcome to Castle Black," Jon says dryly. "Are you ever going to tell me what this is about?"

The fire-stranger smiles again, but sadly this time. "Perhaps we should start with this," he says quietly, holding out a letter. "It's from my foster-father – Jon Connington. My foster-mother died recently; a fever. Her name was Ashara Dayne. Father – Griff, I suppose I should call him now – then deigned to, uh. Honour me with some information I would rather not have had. And now I fear I'm about to do the same to you, Jon."

He looks round at them, from Robb to Jeyne to Rickon – woken by Brienne's knock, yawning as he sits up. Oathkeeper, Longclaw and Needle all lie on the table beside him; the wolves are watching him back. Grey Wind and Nymeria are wary, but Ghost, for some reason, is not.

"You see," says the fire-stranger quietly, "it would seem I owe my life to my mo- to Lady Ashara. And to Lord Eddard Stark.".

He draws a breath. "My name is Aegon Targaryen."


	5. tyrion

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**tyrion.**

"My Lord of Lannister," says Snow, grinning. "Come for the snark-hunting?"

Tyrion surprises himself by laughing as he dismounts. "With a dragon, no less. It's good to see you, Snow – or do I say your Highness now?"

"Hardly. A vow is a vow."

Tyrion nods. He'd expected no less of a Stark, whether Eddard's bastard or Lyanna's, and had told the Queen so more than once. She still hoped though, like the fool girl she still was, crown or no.

But first, there is one thing – well, two.

He swallows hard. "Jon," he says, "about Robb – I am truly sorry, Jon. It was a foul deed, cruelly done. He was my enemy, but that – that was not – ah. I am sorry."

Snow's mouth tightens, but he nods. "Sansa said you showed her kindness at King's Landing," he says. "That, I think, will win you safe passage in the North."

"I come as an envoy," Tyrion says, sharply.

"Robb and Lady Stark and dozens of others were guests," says Snow. "I think you'll find us somewhat more ruthless than you remember, Tyrion. I hear you're a kinslayer yourself these days."

Unseen under his cloak, Tyrion clenches a fist. _There is no escaping it. Has Jaime felt this way about Aerys, all these years?_

"Only the once," he says. "So far."

"Well, there are none of them up here to kill," says Snow, and Tyrion thinks, _Oh, this one has grown dangerous_. "Come along – this way, I daresay you've noticed a few changes."

"There was a battle, or so I hear," says Tyrion, struggling along by his side. Ghost walks with them, silent as ever.

Snow's mouth twists with unpleasant memories. "Years ago now." When they reach the door to the hall, he looks down at Tyrion and gives a sudden grin. "I hope you're not prone to fainting, Lannister," he says and pushes it open.

At the table inside, a red-haired man in white and gray rises to his feet: blue-eyed, broad-shouldered, broken-nosed, grinning tightly.

"Welcome back to Westeros, my Lord of Lannister," says Robb Stark.

For what might just possibly be the first time in his life, Tyrion Lannister finds himself struck completely speechless.


	6. jon

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**jon.**

The black stallion is quite possibly the most beautiful horse he's ever laid eyes on.

"Your Grace..." he says, stunned.

"Daenerys," she says. "I'll let you dispense with the 'aunt'."

He snorts. She holds out the stallion's reins to him, smiling.

"Ride him."

"I cannot possibly accept –"

"Please?"

Oh, she has a lovely smile. In spite of himself, Jon smiles back; wraps his hand around the reins. "Very well."

Ghost watches interestedly as Jon spurs the stallion out of Castle Black; they canter down the road a ways, turn off it east along the wall, trot, then gallop, then, the horse surging under him and the wind in his hair and a whoop beginning on his lips, Jon gives the horse his head, and they run and run for a mile or more through the snow, and jump a ditch on the way back, flushed and thrilled.

"You've given me the wind, my Queen," he calls to her, laughing with the joy of it.


	7. daenerys

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**daenerys.**

For some reason, she was not expecting Robb Stark to be so tall, though he is of a height with both her nephews. The man is handsome in a battered way, and probably quite ruthless on the battlefield, and far too open to be a truly good negotiator.

"Torrhen Stark bent the knee," says Dany. "Your lords –"

"My lords remember when Rickard and Brandon Stark were butchered on your father's orders," says Robb. "Six years and more we've ruled ourselves. An alliance is one thing. Fealty is quite another."

"It's your fealty I want – yours, and that of all the Seven Kingdoms," says Dany, watching him closely. Stubborn. Stubborn and unbreakable. He's seen too much for that.

"You won't have it," says Robb flatly.

"I _have_ dragons," Dany says.

"Aegon the Conqueror's were big enough to ride," he points out dryly.

Dany snorts back laughter and flings her hands up. He's won and they both know it; she cannot retake her throne without his support. Robert Arryn will do as he says – they say in the North that the boy doesn't take a piss without the Lady Sansa's permission. The river lords will follow the Starks over the Lannisters if given the opportunity, and Shireen Baratheon and Edric Storm remain hostages at Winterfell in the wake of Stannis Baratheon's death at the Fist of the First Men. Any disgruntled storm lords will flock to those two, she hopes. Doran Martell will support her for Aegon's sake.

Leaves the ironborn, and the westerlands, and the Reach.

Robb is smiling back at her. He's quite charming in a fierce, honest way, and Dany suspects that given half the chance he would treat her with the same easy affection he treats his sisters.

She's honest enough to admit to herself that she almost likes the thought of that. It has proved quite impossible not to envy the Starks their closeness; they've even poached her nephews away from her, she thinks ruefully. Aegon has been overheard calling young Rickon _pup_ the way his siblings do and helping Arya teach them all Bravosi. Yesterday, little Kitten called him "Uncle Aegon".

"Then independence is the price I'll pay for your support in the war," says Dany.

Robb nods. "What of the Wall?"

"Jon is my nephew, however much he dislikes admitting to it. What he needs from me, he'll have."

"He doesn't dislike admitting to it," says Robb. "He's just not used to it yet."

"Aegon has been here for two years," says Dany pointedly.

"Aegon is about as used to being a Targaryen as Jon," says Robb. "Give them time." He smiles suddenly. "At least, that's what my lady wife suggests."

It did not take Dany long to see that Jeyne Stark has the patience of Baelor the Blessed and far more mercy, despite all that has happened to her.

"Besides," she says, smoothly changing the subject, "if the Wall falls, sooner or later my realm will be as threatened as yours. It is in all our interests to aid Lord Snow in any way we can. I am certainly in no position to disbelieve the claims of those who've seen magic done beyond the Wall. Any kind of magic."

Robb nods. _My realm and yours_. She is sure he did not miss that. "Then there is just one other thing. A personal favour, you might say."

Dany nods. A gesture of goodwill. Dragonsteel, probably. The greatsword of House Stark was stolen and melted down by the Lannisters, she remembers. "Of course."

"Tyrion Lannister must take the black."

For an instant, she stares at him, completely taken aback.

Robb waits for an answer.

"The black?" she manages. "Why?" But of course: Sansa. "Your sister wed him practically at knife-point, and the marriage was never consummated. An annulment –"

"I find these days that I care very little for the announcements of the Faith of the Seven, and nor do my bannermen. I want there to be no doubt in anyone's mind, no matter what gods they follow, that my sister is free of him and may wed whom she chooses."

Dany, lips numb, says quietly, "I promised him Casterly Rock."

_I owe him my dragons_.

"I'm promising you the Iron Throne," says Robb. "I'm promising you _vengeance_."

_Three betrayals you will know: once for blood and once for gold and once for love._

They never said that one of them would be her own.


	8. the prince of summerhall

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU. (erm, if R+L=J, then it follows that Jon/Dany is incest, so a warning here.)  
_

**the prince of summerhall.**

He wakes in darkness and panics for a moment – remembering the cold and the terror and the sound of the horn; the fire in his hands and the blue-bladed knife plunging towards his face – before she puts a gentle hand on his chest.

"Careful, love. You nearly lost that eye again. Here."

Warm fingers touch his temples, unwind the bandage from around his head. He blinks and winces; eyebrow, temple, cheekbone... what is it with people trying to cut his eyes out?

The firelit familiarity of his room at Winterfell swims into focus, and in the foreground: Daenerys.

"Your Grace," he rasps.

"Here. Drink." She helps him steady himself against the pillows; he sips at a cup of water and realises, dimly, that aside from his bandages, he's naked under the furs.

"What happened?"

Dany smiles faintly. She has her own scars, he realises: at her chin, her own left eyebrow. "We won," she says simply.

They won. Yes. He had felt that, somewhere in his bones; the last attack on him was all desperation.

"Barristan..."

"He died well."

Stab of grief. "He shouldn't have died at all." So many dead in the last wave of fighting, in the darkness: Barristan, Brienne, Dolorous Edd, the Blackfish, Connington who had treated Jon with the same gruff affection as he had Aegon; even Tyrion, who'd known too much and taught Sam Tarly more, and so they'd worked their magic to kill him; even Howland Reed.

(_She named you for the Dragonknight. She begged Ned to bring you home... she would not rest until he gave his word you'd be raised as a Stark of Winterfell_.)

"You are his Prince, Aemon."

"I am the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and my name is Jon," he says sharply.

Dany smiles again; there's some strange knowledge behind that smile, some well of hope and joy and love.

_Please_, he'd begged her once before. _Please don't – I cannot do this, Dany, I cannot, I love you with my whole heart and soul, but my life and my honour are no longer mine to give –_

And she had called him _Aemon_ one last time, and kissed him goodbye, and not by word or look or deed had they ever referred to that time again.

"Dany?"

"_Three horses you must ride_," she says. "_One to bed and one to dread and one to love_. Well, I rode to bed with my sun-and-stars, and I've ridden north beyond the Wall to face a threat unimaginable. And then I rode back south, to Winterfell, carrying you with me."

"Dany," he says again, and wonders why he feels so panicked.

"The Wall is fallen, Lord Snow," she says softly. "We won the war, but the Wall fell. The Magicker has pledged himself to rebuild it, and the King in the North has disbanded the Night's Watch until it stands again, to return when Bran calls."

Speechless. He draws a breath, shocked.

"You're free, Aemon," she says quietly. "Free to come south, to stay in Winterfell, to go back North, to travel the world if you wish it. Free to come with me to King's Landing, to take up your rightful seat, to rule with me as you were meant to. The dragon has three heads, my love. You're free now: to be one of them. To be mine."

"Dany," he says. Third time's the charm. She cups his face in her hands.

"Aemon," she says. "My love. Come south with me, Prince of Summerhall. Be with me."

His hands come up to grasp her wrists. He swallows, hard, and closes his eyes against the sight of her face in the firelight; my place, my place is –

_This is not your place_, the Kings of Winter used to tell him.

_She named you for the Dragonknight_.

And from further back: _he named me for the Dragonknight, who was his uncle, or his father, depending on which tale you believe..._

_Maester Aemon, I wish you'd known the truth of me, Great-Uncle._

He shifts his grip on Dany's wrists, kisses the left one, skin there soft as silk and hot as fire and the blood pounding beneath it: _fire and blood_, _the words of my father's House, the man my lady mother loved though it brought her and half the Realm to ruin..._

_Uncle – Uncle Ned, forgive me_.

"My Queen," he says against her skin. She frees her other wrist from his hand and wraps that arm around his neck, fingers sliding in his hair. "My love."

Her kisses taste of fire.


	9. the prince of dragonstone

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**the prince of dragonstone.**

"It's foolishness," shouts his aunt, "absolute folly. You could have wed the Tyrell girl, you could have wed a Lannister –"

"I'll wed no damn relation of the man who had my lady mother raped and murdered and my two-year-old sister butchered more brutally than a pig at slaughter," Aegon snaps. "I've had enough, Dany. I've sworn oaths to you; I've fought your wars and captained your armies, I've sacrificed my life and my friends to your cause. But I'll not be bartered off like a sheep at market, fifty years of misery in exchange for the Queen's peace. In this one thing, I'll make my own choices. I love her."

"Did you think I loved Drogo when Viserys first sold me to him?"

"I think Rhaegar, for all his other faults, would never have done it," says Aegon, calculated to wound.

Dany turns away. "The Tyrells..."

"Margaery Tyrell will be a widow thrice over by the time we're done here and childless still. Tully's wife died giving birth to little Minisa. Wed Margaery to Edmure, let her be a mother to the girl. She's near twenty years younger than he is; chances are she'll give him a son. Either way, that's two loose ends tied up. They'll make no alliances we find... unfortunate."

"One of the Royce girls..."

"It's done, Dany," says Aegon harshly. "Robb gave his consent, and we said the words before the heart tree before I left Winterfell. The southern lords will doubtless want it done again in a sept, but as far as I'm concerned – as far as the Starks are concerned, more to the point, and that includes my brother, lest you had forgotten – Sansa and I are wed."

Dany groans and falls into a chair. "You _do_ love her, don't you."

"Yes."

He waits a moment, watching her rub at her temples, the bruises under her eyes, her tired pallor, and wishes he felt sorry for visiting this betrayal on her. Then, wickedly, he says, "If you're that eager to have Margeary wed a Targaryen, Aem is still –"

Dany throws a cushion at him. Aegon flees the queen's pavilion laughing and certain now that when Sansa comes south to join him, she'll be welcomed as befits the Princess of Dragonstone.

She's had so much grief in her life, his Queen of Winter. He means to bring her nothing but joy.


	10. jaime

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**jaime.**

It's a ridiculous effort to stay awake, but there is a weight on his chest and a strong light in his eyes... sunlight, he thinks.

Screams and cries and clash of steel. His left hand gropes for his sword-hilt as he forces his eyes open.

The Stark boy kneels over him, bearded and broken-nosed, a boy no longer. "Here," he says, oddly gentle, and puts Widow's Wail's hilt in his hand.

Jaime manages to shake his head, to push it back at him. "Take it," he wheezes. "Yours. Ice. Yours all along. Put a wolfshead pommel on it."

He pauses there to cough up his lungs and nearly choke on his own blood and rails, silently, at his useless left hand that's got him into this mess. Will Cersei know it when he dies?

Yes, for a certainty.

"That's what we've become," he says. "Thieves and oathbreakers. You and I know a thing or two about broken promises, don't we, Stark?"

The Young Wolf grips his hand with a grip far firmer than Jaime would have given him credit for, so long ago in the courtyard of Winterfell when Robert was shouting for lanterns and crypts and Cersei looked cold and tired enough to start demanding people's heads.

"Yes," he says gently. "Yes, Lannister, we do."

Jaime coughs at him when he wants to laugh and chokes when he tries to curse and wishes he could feel his fucking legs and meets a pair of eyes the same shade of blue as those of a seven-year-old boy he once tossed off a tower.

_The things I do for love_.

"Forgive me," he whispers, and the darkness rushes up to embrace him.


	11. shadowcat

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** scenes from a happyending!AU._

**shadowcat.**

She makes her way down the steps slowly, the lantern held out before her, Lynna clinging to her hand.

"You're not scared, are you?" she asks her. "You shouldn't be. The Kings of Winter look after their own."

"I'm not scared," says Lynna firmly.

"Good," says Catelyn.

Hope and Kitten follow after them, nearly full-grown now, eyes gleaming golden. The Kings of Winter watch them pass, and their footsteps echo in the darkness.

They reach the end: Lord Rickard, Uncle Brandon, Aunt Lyanna. Grandfather, Uncle Benjen, Grandmother. Their grandparent's tombs are empty, they know, just as Brandon the Shipwright's is. The Silent Sisters came never north to Winterfell bearing Lord Eddard's bones; yet he waits here for them just the same, solemn and kind. Lady Catelyn's statue is the first ever placed here not of a Stark born. Her smile is faint and soft, and she has a look that makes her granddaughter think she was very sensible in life.

Cat takes the torch in both her hand and Lynna steps up to Aunt Lyanna's tomb, holding up the crown of winter roses.

"Aunt Lya," she says. "I'm sorry Uncle Jon couldn't come. He's gone south with Aunt Dany and Uncle Aegon to win the Iron Throne back. But he asked me, before he left, if I'd come in his place and bring you the first winter roses the way he always does."

She puts the wreath in Lyanna's stone lap and touches the cold unfeeling stone hand. The wolves lead them back out of the tombs, back to the light, to Father and Mother and Ned and Bran and baby Jon. Back to Aunt Arya and Uncle Rickon and Uncle Bran.

Cat glances over her shoulder once, as they walk, back at her family. In the torchlight, flickering, distant, Lord Eddard seems to smile after them.


	12. tale of years

_this is a disclaimer._

_**AN:** happyending!AU. Did I mention that already? _

_(I cannot BELIEVE I've just written this up.)  
_

**tale of years.**

Let's say the Red Wedding is a kind of "year zero" for the History of the Starks of Winterfell. (Erm, I'm assuming the years have twelve months in Westeros as well, even if they don't have proper seasons.)

* * *

**A few weeks after the Red Wedding:** Alayne Stone, enjoying the hospitality of Lord Nestor Royce along with Lord Robert Arryn and Lord Petyr Baelish, follows Lord Robert out of the gardens of the castle when she sees him sneaking off with the son of one of the kitchen workers, a Northern woman named Osha. The boy, calling himself Rick, takes Lord Robert to an abandoned barn in the woods and shows him a friend: the direwolf Shaggydog.

**Three months aRW:** Sansa Stark poisons Petyr Baelish with hemlock upon discovering that he has realised the kitchen lad Rick is her brother Rickon Stark and plans to kill him along with Lord Robert. Lady Sansa then begins to write covertly to her brother's bannermen in Rickon's name, claiming Winterfell and the crown of the King in the North for her brothers.

**Four months aRW:** Brienne of Tarth appears in the Vale.

**Nine months aRW:** Birth of Catelyn Stark, daughter of Jeyne Westerling and Robb Stark, born in an unnamed inn north and east of Riverrun, close to the Blue Fork. 'Hoster Snow' is the first to hold his 'great-grandchild'. On the same day, somewhere in the Frostfangs, Brandon Stark accepts the task his father's gods lay on him. In return they offer him a gift which will aide him the rest of his life in exchange for his service.

A day later, Robb Stark awakes on the riverbank of the Green Fork with three arrow-wounds in him and a scar along his jaw. He is found by farmers and taken in, believing him to be the victim of bandits.

A week after this, Jon Snow finds the Reed siblings, Hodor, and Brandon Stark in the weirwood grove in the Haunted Forest and takes steps to hide them from Stannis Baratheon.

* * *

**1 aRW:** Arya Stark returns to Westeros and meets her direwolf Nymeria, with whose help she shakes free of the training she underwent in Braavos. Arya is able - though it takes much practice - to retain the skills the Faceless Men taught her and yet keep her identity as "Arya Stark" intact. One snowy evening, Nymeria guides her to the farmhouse where Robb is sheltering and brother and sister are reunited.

Around this time Roose Bolton is slain battling the Greyjoys near Moat Cailin (which is given to the Glovers to hold). His son Ramsay returns to the Dreadfort with a young girl he claims is Arya Stark, marries her, and proceeds to rule the North (rather badly) and attempt to get a child on her. Winterfell he leaves in ruins, having no taste for the work of rebuilding.

**16 months aRW:** Arya and Robb Stark reach a small village by the Blue Fork and stop to ask for directions. The young mother in the inn yard is pointed out to them as the new village herbalist, Jenny Snow, who arrived here heavy with child and in the company of her late husband's grandfather. Robb meets his daughter for the first time.

* * *

**2 aRW:** Robb, Jeyne, Arya and Catelyn Stark and Brynden Tully reach Greywater Watch, where they are warmly welcomed by Howland Reed. He shows them Sansa's letters pleading Rickon and Brandon's rights to the lords bannermen of the North, and Robb asks him to contrive a way to send ravens to the bannermen and Sansa and summon them to Greywater Watch.

Two weeks later, Sansa Stark and Jon Snow are among the recipients of Howland Reed's brief message: _Robb lives._

**27 months aRW:** Sansa and Rickon Stark, Brienne of Tarth and Osha the wildling arrive at Greywater Watch. To say it's an emotional scene would be something of an understatement.

A short time later, the lords bannermen begin to arrive, and Robb lays out a campaign plan to lay siege to the Dreadfort.

**29 months aRW:** The wolves of Winterfell return home. The Dreadfort is besieged and Stannis, furious at Robb's return, the continued refusal of his bannermen to bend the knee to him, Stannis, and the wildings' repeated rejections of him as King, leaves for Eastwatch, where at least he is sure of his power base. Jon Snow announces Brandon's presence at Castle Black and fights off the third assassination attempt by false black brothers sent north for this purpose by Cersei Lannister. They had previously succeeded in killing Stannis' queen, although not Stannis himself, nor his daughter Shireen.

**31 months aRW:** The King in the North, his siblings, his wife and daughter arrive in Castle Black, where Jon Snow breaks the King's nose in fury at Robb's "boundless bloody stupidity" and tells him all he knows of the encroaching invasion by the Others and the return of magic to the world.

Aegon Targaryen makes his way to Castle Black at last, having travelled to Meereen to pledge his allegiance to his aunt Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, and then on to Sunspear with his cousin Quentyn Martell. Doran Martell is dubious of Aegon's claims at first, but accepts Daenerys' rejection of a marriage to Quentyn on the grounds of barrenness, naming Aegon her heir and rightful Prince of Dragonstone. Aegon sets out from Sunspear to find his half-brother, if he possibly can: Rhaegar Targaryen's son by Lyanna Stark. The boy was named Aemon by his mother and taken north to her home by his uncle Lord Eddard; Jon Connington, Aegon's foster-father and Lord Commander of the Golden Company, knew no more of him than that, but Doran mentions Lord Snow on the Wall, giving Aegon hope that perhaps that man is not Ned Stark's son, but Lyanna's. He and Jon Snow quickly become close.

* * *

**3 aRW:** Arya Stark finds a way into the Dreadfort and kills Ramsay Bolton, pausing to tell him _the wolves of Winterfell send their regards_. She opens the gates of the castle to her brother's men, who raze it to the ground and sow the earth with salt afterwards so that naught remains of the Dreadfort but the godswood. The woman posing as Arya Stark begs a boon of her.

The lords bannermen begin calling Arya 'the Lady of the Dreadfort' and 'the Witch of Winterfell'; the first whispers begin that the Starks are sorcerors all, and their names should not be spoken lest the speaker draw their attention.

In the meantime, Sansa Stark truces with the kraken's daughter at Deepwood Motte, Euron Crow's Eye being more interested in raiding the Reach and dreaming of dragons than fighting the Starks. Asha Greyjoy gives up the Motte and leads her men into the Green Fork. They begin a butchery at the Twins unmatched even by the Red Wedding itself, leaving the Freys all but extinct and burning the castles. It is said later that a woman robed in grey put the knife in Lord Walder's heart and died then in the flames, having spoken briefly to Asha Greyjoy. There were whispers she was Lady Stark herself, but Robb reacts angrily the first time he hears that tale and it is never spoken of to his younger siblings.

Howland Reed comes to Castle Black confirming the truth of Aegon Targaryen's tale to Jon Snow.

**40 months aRW:** Birth of Lynna Stark, daughter of Jeyne Westerling and Robb Stark, at Winterfell. This childbed was far harder on Jeyne than the first. Oldtown never having sent another Maester north to serve at Winterfell, both mother and babe nearly died. Several of the lords bannermen were guesting at Winterfell at this time and Rickon Stark overheard Lord Manderly listing possible second wives for his King, weighing alliances and wondering which was most likely to bear a son - Myranda Royce was suggested, and even Shireen Baratheon. Robb, when told, was furious, storming into the hall and annoucing little Catelyn was heir to Winterfell and all the North; that no son of his would supplant her, and that in fact he would be dammed if he ever got a child on any woman but Jeyne. Manderly left Winterfell that same day (and indeed never returned there for the rest of his life, though his sons and grandchildren did).

In later years, the story went that Manderly had left and the gates of Winterfell were about to be closed when Lord Snow and Lord Brandon rode up from Castle Black in a great hurry. _The King!_ Lord Snow shouted. _Where is the King? I bring a Maester for Queen Jeyne_. Maester Samwell was a black brother, a great friend of Lord Snow's, and saved both mother and child's life. Sarella Sand and Quentyn Martell journeyed north with him, guesting at Winterfell and becoming close with the Starks.

Jon goes to the crypts and brings his lady mother a crown of blue winter roses for the first time.

* * *

**4 aRW:** Daenerys comes to Valyria. Tyrion Lannister has helped her control her dragons and learn to communicate with them to some extent; in return, she promises him Casterly Rock. Sansa Stark begins to learn from the Reeds, from Brandon and from Jeyne Stark, eventually becoming proficient as a herbalist and something of a magicker in her own right.

* * *

**5 aRW**: Emmon Frey finally marches past Asha Greyjoy's fortifications in the Green Fork, from whence she and her men have been raiding the riverlands for near two years and reaches Moat Cailin. He is completely defeated by the northmen, with half his bannermen (primarily those whose families attended the Red Wedding) refusing to take up arms against Robb Stark after the King in the North shows himself with Grey Wind at his side. Frey is hanged like a common criminal by Robb's own hand on a gibbet raised before the new walls of Moat Cailin. The river lords will not declare him King a second time - which Robb accepts, intending by now to back Daenerys' claim to the Iron Throne when she reaches Westeros - but they declare peace and reopen trade through the Neck.

However, at the Battle of Moat Cailin, Rickon Stark is found to have snuck along in his brother's baggage train from Winterfell and nearly causes a disaster when found. Robb, furious, sends him north to Castle Black with the request to Lord Snow that Jon teach him common sense and self-control. Lord Snow laughs at Rickon when the boy asks to be made a ranger with Shaggydog and appoints him his steward. In spite of Rickon's reckless nature, the boy demonstrates considerable skill in the practice yard and with military strategies. Arya Stark escorted him north and spends several months at the Wall, often going ranging with the Reeds. Sansa Stark comes for a visit and she and Aegon 'practice their charm on each other', as Arya puts it.

**61 months aRW:** Daenerys Targaryen arrives at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Stannis escapes with much of his - by now rather tattered - host. Several of his lords swear fealty to Daenerys. Shireen and Edric Storm are taken as hostages to Winterfell. Aurane Waters is revealed as a member of the Golden Company and a dear friend of Aegon's. The Stark-Targaryen alliance is formalised. Daenerys becomes a guest at Winterfell, where she is somewhat astonished at becoming true friends with the Starks, never having had friends of her own age and equal rank before.

(Victarion Greyjoy's whereabouts are not known and remain so, but Daenerys once hints to Jeyne that dragons don't much like krakens, which the Queen in the North takes to mean that Greyjoy came to Meereen after all, where he likely conducted himself... the way most Greyjoys seem to do.)

**65 months aRW:** Melisandre of Asshai discovers Benjen Stark alive in her and Stannis' exile beyond the Wall. Jon leads a rescue but is separated from Ghost by Melisandre's magic and captured himself. Though he meets his uncle and confirms his identity, it remains questionable if Melisandre did not simply resurrect Benjen in order to lure the Starks out. Benjen himself is near-starved, feverish and delirious, referring to Jon as Father, Bran and Ned all before apologising to him for not telling him the truth of his parentage. More than even Howland's oath, or his affinity with the dragons, Benjen's words have Jon truly believing for the first time that he is indeed Lyanna's son.

At the Fist of the First Men, a battle is joined when Melisandre, desparate now, cuts Benjen's throat in an attempt to use his blood in her magic. Later, no-one is sure whether it was Robb's blow or Jon's that killed Stannis. Melisandre's corpse is found the next morning some way into the forest north of the Fist. She had escaped the fighting and reached the treeline relatively unscathed though driven half-mad by the failed attempt to draw on Benjen's lifeblood for power in her magic.

Then the wolves caught up with her.

Nymeria whelps three pups, female all: two grey for Catelyn and Lynna, and one pitch black, with eyes of weirwood-red which lead the Starks to assume Ghost sired the pups. Arya gives the third pup to Sansa, who names it _Memory_. Aegon quips about direwolves coming in dragon-colours now. Jeyne Stark begins to wonder about his relationship with Sansa.

* * *

**6 aRW:** Brandon Stark completes the rebuilding of Winterfell. With this work concluded, Brandon takes the black. Births of Eddard and Brandon Stark, twin sons of Jeyne Westerling and Robb Stark. Robb holds by his declaration of Catelyn as his heir and opines that introducing Dornish primogeniture would settle more than one dispute about inheritances in the North. Daenerys admits to her love for her nephew Jon Snow, who confesses it's mutual, but tells her he cannot forsake his vows. They kiss goodbye and do not speak of it again.

The Long Night begins.

* * *

**6-7 aRW:** Deaths of many dear friends of the Starks and Targaryens in the first battles of the War, including Brienne of Tarth, Osha and the Blackfish. Robb takes the title King beyond the Wall by a combination of audacity and belligerency and wrestling-matches, gaining wildling support and granting them safety from the Others and lands in the Gift to settle in if they wish, though with the proviso that they agree to pay a tithe to the Night's Watch. Sullen but afraid, the wildlings agree. Alys Karstark becomes godsworn like Lord Brandon.

**90 months aRW:** Sansa Stark and Aegon Targaryen go south to the Riverlands and the Vale of Arryn, bearing proof of the coming danger and a plea for arms and men to man the Wall. Those Lords who still follow the old gods pledge their assistance; so do many river lords who follow the Faith of the Seven. Others answer the Targaryen call. Lord Robert makes Sansa and Aegon welcome in the Eyrie, where Aegon proposes to Sansa. She turns him down, partly because of the War and partly out of old fears that all he seeks is a cementing of the Stark-Targaryen alliance. He tells her Rhaegar and Lyanna already took care of that, and that he can wait for her if she needs time.

* * *

**8 aRW:** Deaths of Tyrion Lannister and Howland Reed, murdered by wights in an attempt to wipe out the lorekeepers of the Stark-Targaryens. Rickon Stark meets Lyanna Mormont and promptly falls in love, destroying all Jon's hopes for him to take the black and succeed his cousin as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Together they take command of the besieged Shadow Tower, killing Euron Crow's Eye in battle and finding that they work well together, despite several vocal arguments.

**99 months aRW:** Arya and Brandon Stark taken captive at Craster's Keep by the Enemy. The King in the North and Lord Snow are able to free them, but both were hurt, and for the rest of their lives neither of them ever feel the cold again. Jon Connington dies during this battle, leaving Aegon Targaryen the Lord Commander of the Golden Company. Around this time, Sansa and Aegon become lovers.

* * *

**9 aRW:** The Wall falls. Working wolf-magic and dragon-magic with Jon Snow as a conduit and focal point for both sets of spells, Aegon, Daenerys, Brandon and Sansa are able to repel the Others, reinforcing the magics that keep them out of the Kingdoms and finally destroying them utterly - or so they believe and hope - with the help of the dragons themselves. Barristan Selmy is killed in the final wave of attacks defending Jon Snow.

The King of Winter announces the disbanding of the Night's Watch until such time as Lord Brandon has raised the Wall once more. Many settle in the Gift; others take up positions in the garrison at Winterfell. Maester Samwell becomes Maester to the Starks, to the delight of the Stark children.

Jon Snow announces his intention to go south with his brother and aunt to win back the Iron Throne for House Targaryen. He takes as his personal arms a single dragon's head, coloured winter-rose-blue, on a black background. Aegon takes a gold one, for the Martell spear and the Golden Company. The Dragon Host leaves Winterfell at last, to much sorrow and sniffling and promises to write and visit. Robb and Rickon march south with them.

Nymeria whelps three pups again, all male this time.

* * *

**10 aRW:** Birth of Jon Stark, son of Jeyne Westerling and Robb Stark. Marriage of Aegon Targaryen and Sansa Stark in the godswood at Winterfell. Daenerys, having briefly hoped for a marriage-alliance with a westerland house or Reach nobility, is at first angry, but her love for both Sansa and Aegon win out. The Dragon Host marches unchallenged through the riverlands to the Trident. Asha Greyjoy bends the knee to the Dragon Queen and is promised the Seastone Chair. Meanwhile, Rickon Stark slays Loras Tyrell at the Gates of the Moon, the Lannisters having sent a force to the Fingers by sea to march west through the Vale and attempt to take the Dragon Host in the rear. The men of the Vale who fought at the Wall return home. The Northmen with the Dragon Host are a small contingent. At the second Battle of the Trident, the Dragon Host has the mastery and Robb Stark slays the Kingslayer, Jaime Lannister, who returns the second longsword forged from Ice to its rightful owner before dying.

When they reach King's Landing, the gates are flung open. Mace Tyrell awaits them on bended knee. Cersei Lannister has poisoned herself, her son Tommen and several of her cousins upon hearing the news of her twin brother's death. Daenerys is horrified, having had every intention to spare Tommen and the younger Lannisters. She gives the Rock to Kevan Lannister and requests of the freed and reinstated Edmure Tully that he wed Margaery Tyrell.

Edric Storm, as the only acknowledged son of the last Lord of Storm's End, and Shireen Baratheon, as her father's only heir, are wed and given Storm's End. Davos Seaworth goes with them.

Coronation of Daenerys, the First of her Name, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar, Lord Protector of the Kingdoms of South Westeros, Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons: the Queen on the Iron Throne.

**128 months aRW:** Birth of Daemon Targaryen, son of Sansa Stark and Aegon Targaryen. In his honour, a great fair is held at Harrenhal. Aegon claims _we've all had quite enough of tourneys, thank you_. A tradition begins to form of fairs held at Harrenhal one year and Moat Cailin the next, called the _Summer Fair_ and the _Winter Fair_ respectively. Over the years Moat Cailin's economic importance to the North begins to grow, in rivalry with White Harbour. Robb is quietly smug about that.

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**12 aRW:** Birth of Hoster Tully, son of Margaery Tyrell and Edmure Tully.

* * *

**13 aRW:** Birth of Rhaena Targaryen, daughter of Sansa Stark and Aegon Targaryen. Birth of Anya Stark, daughter of Jeyne Westerling and Robb Stark. Marriage of Rickon Stark and Lyanna Mormont at Winterfell, for which occasion the Targaryens return to Winterfell and bring half the nobility of South Westeros with them. Robb gives Rickon Oathkeeper, the sword he wielded throughout the War, taking instead the sword returned to him by Jaime Lannister for his own and naming it _Ice_ once more, and also gives the couple Lordship of Moat Cailin. Rickon and Anna take as their arms a wolfshead, black, on a field of green - Mormont colours. The words they choose are _Winter's End_. Brandon predicts that their third son will rule the Wall.

Catelyn and Lynna Stark come south to King's Landing for a year to foster with their aunts and uncles in the south, where they shock several court ladies, get in fights with stableboys and spoil their small cousins outrageously. Arya Stark gives Catelyn her sword Needle before her nieces leave Winterfell and reminds her to _stick 'em with the pointy end_. Catelyn's direwolf Kitten whelps three pups: two male and one female. All have black fur, but only one of the males has green eyes as well, leaving the other two for Sansa's children. Daemon names his _Meraxes_ and tells his baby sister that hers is _Valyria_. Around this time an egg laid by one of Daenerys' dragons hatches. Daemon decides the red-gold hatchling is a girl and names her _Rhaenysia_ while he's at it.

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**14 aRW:** Birth of Joran Stark of the Tower Starks, son of Lyanna Mormont and Rickon Stark.

Robert Arryn refuses the match Nestor Royce has arranged for him with a Tyrell - a cousin of Lady Margaery's - and insists on wedding a woman called Cassindre, a merchant's daughter who is the mother of his unborn child. Half Westeros is poised for war until Aegon, Sansa, Robb and Jeyne intervene, eventually arranging a match for the Tyrell girl with a Royce, while Daenerys, guesting in the Reach with Aemon, points out to Mace Tyrell that the only thing in the Vale Robert rules in more than name is his own private bedchamber. Nevertheless, a repeat of the Red Wedding is just barely avoided, with skirmishes in the woods around the Gates of the Moon and several Vale Lords privately telling Aegon they'll swear to the Queen but not to that fool Robert. Sansa and Jeyne welcome Cassindre warmly and give her what help they can in navigating her new role, realising that not only does she love Robert, but she is also capable of dealing with him in his stranger moods and fits. Anyone else, Sansa points out wryly, would have likely packed up, demanded an annulment and returned to her father's house within a month of the wedding.

While this confusion reigns in the Vale Catelyn and Lynna return home under the supervision of Aurane Waters until they are met at White Harbour by Rickon Stark. Catelyn gives Kitten's last pup to little Joran, who receives it with much delighted gurgling.

Aemon Targaryen loses his patience somewhat with Lady Olenna's needling about his parentage and the tourney at Harrenhal while attending such an event at Highgarden and rather irritably sets out to win it and crown Daenerys Queen of Love and Beauty. (Lady Olenna is excessively annoyed. Daenerys is not.)

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**15 aRW:** Birth of Sansa Jeyne Arryn, daughter of Cassindre Baker and Robert Arryn. Aegon invites the Arryns to court. Robb and Queen Jeyne return north. While on the road Jeyne comes to realise she carries their seventh child, a summer babe they intend be born in peace. They choose _Daena_ as their fourth daughter's name.

But Aeron Damphair has won many supporters in the Iron Islands with talk of Asha Greyjoy's disregard for ironborn ways, and finally gathers enough men to launch an assault on the Shadow Tower - though in truth this mostly involves walking up to the ruins and squatting in them. The Wall is as yet only a few feet high and glowing with new magic - wolf magic, which Aeron despises almost more than Melisandre did. The Damphair takes Alys Karstark hostage, provoking fury among the Northmen who already consider the godsworn apart from the squabbles of men and not to be harmed. Asha Greyjoy comes to Winterfell to truce preemptively with House Stark's Shadowcat, saying that it's best to let sleeping direwolves lie and that since the end of the War her uncle has only grown madder. Shadowcat accepts Asha's truce and orders men out into the wolfswood, north and east to the Stony Shore and the Motte, to scout the land and discover the Damphair's movements. Robb and Queen Jeyne are attacked on the kingsroad. Although the handful of Drowned Men are quickly driven off, Jeyne miscarries. Arya sends a message to Jon and Sansa before she leaves Winterfell to meet with Brandon and Jojen Reed at Castle Black: _Winter is coming. Come home_.

Jon sails to Eastwatch and rides west from there, meeting Arya, Brandon, Jojen and Harrion Karstark and planting the banner of the Night's Watch in the ruins at Castle Black. Robb, grieving for his daughter and furious, rides northeast with Rickon and hatches a plan to burn the ironborn's longboats and trap them at the Shadow Tower. He gambles they will not cross the Wall, for their Drowned God has no purchase in the far North at all, but try to hold their position instead. Arya sneaks into the ironborn camp and is able to rescue Alys Karstark. The two women reach the Motte eventually and have become fast friends by then. In the meantime the Northmen gather for a shattering assault on Aeron Damphair's position, winning an easy victory.

Robb executes Aeron there and then, ending the very last skirmish of the War of the Five Kings. He returns home to lay Daena to rest with the Kings of Winter. Jeyne spends several days locked in her chambers with only Daenerys for company, but recovers at last. Hurts are healed, wounds are bandaged, and every excuse imaginable is invented to put off their separation for as long as possible.

(The Targaryens leave Winterfell at last one morning some time after Joran's first birthday. The snow is melting in Robb's hair and Jon says cheerfully that black was always his colour and this time Sansa and Arya hug goodbye.)


End file.
